Wednesday, June 6, 2012

It is a sad tale that in the last few months a number of authors and writers passed away and left a void for all of their followers. Now, another famous author added up amongst their ranks as Ray Bradburry died in Los Angeles at age 91. He is best known for his Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Dandelion Wine.

Bradburry is one of the forerunners of Sci-Fi. He has influenced not only the many contemporary writers in this genre, but movie makers, artists and painters as well. The world we are in today, may have been very different if he did not exist in this world and shared us his visions. In honor for his transcendental existence, I listed some of his influences that may be familiar to you.

His influences are innumerable:

If you are a Harry Potter fan, you might have not missed a very quirky yet haunting song in Prisoner of Azkaban that exactly copies one of Ray Bradburry's books: Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was really nice for me to hear it, since I am familiar with this book:

His idea of Artificial Intelligence in I Sing the Body Electric! may have been a contributing factor to Steven Spielberg's A.I. - Artificial Intelligence. Spielberg himself stated that Bradbury was "[his] muse for the better part of [his] sci-fi career.... On the world of science fiction and fantasy and imagination he is immortal".

Famous movie director and writer, Guillermo Del Toro also shared the following: "I feel lonelier. The world is vast and barren: Bradbury was one of the titans of fantastic fiction and a unique voice in American literature. The lyricism of his prose influenced many generations across the globe. A humanist before anything else, Bradbury nurtured my youthful hopes, my flights of fancy. His soul was gentle but his imagination was fierce."

Stephen King is also influenced by Ray Bradburry. He stated that "My first experience of real horror came at the hands of Ray Bradbury." In return we have known Stephen King for numerous best-selling novels: horror, macabre, psychological, suspense and even science fiction.

Even the music industry has been influenced by Bradburry. Canadian DJ Deadmau5 acknowledged on his twit regarding Bradbury's influence on his song The Veldt. He said, "RIP Ray Bradbury: you've touched many lives with your work, and even a few more recently you might not have expected! Sleep well dude!"

The list of names could go on and on, some of them are Leigh Brackett, Neil Gaiman, Kim Harrison, Dean Koontz and Charles L. Grant. But going back to the basics: as a fan what are his influences to you? Because I am sure as a fan you are also affected by Ray Bradburry's death due to prolonged illness.